“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.”
Our Lord’s Prayer
[Note: This post is taken from an article by Herb Reese entitled, “A Comprehensive Church-Based Ministry to Fatherless Boys.”]
To paraphrase a popular saying, America is perfectly designed to get the fatherless epidemic it is getting. After all, since the current publicly accepted general view of reality is materialism — that is, all that exists is only matter, energy, and chance — then so what if men abandon their families?
In a materialistic view of the world, life is only about the self and sensual gratification. And sex — unlimited sex — is the ultimate sensual gratification. We are all just glorified animals anyway. Why should men bother with antiquated moral ideals like duty and sacrifice?
Thus men who abandon their families are simply living out, whether consciously or subconsciously, the logical conclusions of their materialistic, godless worldview. I am not saying that all atheists are terrible parents who abandon their children. Many atheists, like many Christians, are not consistent with what they believe. But logically, materialism, with its “whatever is, is right” mentality, is silent when it comes to the question of what kind of parents we should be.
Therefore, atheism and materialism provide no answers to the fatherless crisis. Unless something changes in the way we perceive realty, the problem of fatherlessness and family disintegration will continue. In other words, if we want to change the result, we have to change the system…or in this case, our worldview.
Or maybe we should just call it repentance. It is time for us to repent before God and acknowledge that he really is the foundation of all existence and, therefore, that God must be the center of our own existence as well.
So let us revisit the Christian worldview, the worldview that has been so unceremoniously ushered out of western civilization’s intellectual front door, the very worldview that has fatherhood at its core.
The Christian Worldview
Theists begin with a basic assumption: if a personal God exists, then it is logical to think that he would introduce himself to us.
Christians believe that God has in fact done so in human history as recorded in the Bible.
The Bible is the story — the history — of God’s progressive revelation of himself to humanity, first to the Jewish race, and then to the entire world. As such, the Bible tells us many helpful and important things about God. Here are some of them:
- God exists – God, who calls himself “I am,” is objectively present and is the foundation of all reality (Exodus 3:14). As such, God is inescapable in the sense that our very being revolves around him (Acts 17:28).
- God creates – Everything that has a beginning has its beginning in God (Genesis 1:1).
- God communicates – God, who has intellect, emotion, and will, is a personal being who communicates (Genesis 1:3) in many different ways (Hebrews 1:1-2).
- God is holy – God is separate from creation and separate from evil (Revelation 4:8).
- The problem -God’s creation, and humanity itself, has been marred because Adam, the first man, sinned (Romans 5:12). Because all of us have Adam’s fallen nature and have followed Adam in his sin, we too are unholy and, therefore, separated from God and under his judgement (Romans 3:23).
- God is love – God doesn’t just love, he is love. He is everything that love has ever been or ever could be (1 John 4:8). But because God is both holy and love, man’s sin set up a conflict between these attributes of God: how can God express his love for us when we have violated his holiness?
- God saves – God resolved this conflict by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross for our sin, bearing the wrath we deserve for our sin in our place (John 3:16). By doing so, God both proved his love for us and satisfied his holiness.
- The solution – God does not force his forgiveness on us. We must receive it as a gift by placing our faith in Jesus Christ to save us from our sin.
If you never have before, you can receive that gift of salvation right now by telling God through prayer that you know you are a sinner, that you believe that Jesus Christ died for your sins on the cross and rose again from the dead, and that you are placing your faith in him as the one who paid for your sins on the cross.
- God is both a Father and our Father – The Bible tells us that God is the eternal Father of his Son, Jesus Christ (John 3:16). It also tells us that God becomes the father of every believer because when we place our faith in Christ, we are “born again” by the Spirit (John 1:12; 3:5). This is why we pray, “Our Father, who art in heaven….”
Thus, the biblical view of God as a Father who can also become our Father is pure gold for every fatherless child, especially for every fatherless boy. Because in God that fatherless boy can have a Father, and in God he can also find a model of whom he, too, can become: someone who begets and then loves, protects and nourishes his begotten.
Fatherhood, then, is a central aspect of the Christian worldview I described above and it is this worldview that reigned supreme in western civilization for almost two millennia.
God the Father’s Heart for the Fatherless
It should be no surprise, then, that the Bible tells us in many places that God the Father has a special concern for the fatherless. Here are some examples:
- “Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan [or “fatherless child”]. If you do, they will cry out to me and I will certainly hear their cry. My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword, your wives will become widows and your children fatherless.” [“Orphans” and “fatherless children” are English translations of the same Hebrew word. Because widows often had almost no source of income in the Old Testament, a fatherless child was considered to be as desperate as an orphan.] Exodus 22:22-24
- “You are the helper of the fatherless…. You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more.” Psalm 10:14, 18
- “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” Psalm 68:5
- “In you the fatherless find mercy.” Hosea 14:3
- “Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed.” Psalm 82:3
These verses describe God the Father as someone who, quite naturally, has a special concern for children who have no father. God hears the cry of the fatherless and inflicts terrible pain on anyone who takes advantage of the fatherless. God is a special helper and defender of the fatherless. And God is a father to the fatherless and shows them mercy.
The last verse listed, Psalm 82:3, is especially pregnant with meaning for any Christian who comes across a fatherless child. For if a father abandoning his children is a logical conclusion of a materialistic worldview, then a Christian taking a fatherless child under their wing is a logical conclusion of someone who believes that God the Father, and therefore fatherhood itself, is at the center of all reality.
Since 2003 New Commandment Men’s Ministries has helped hundreds of churches throughout North America and around the world recruit teams of men who permanently adopt widows, single moms and fatherless children in their congregations for the purpose of donating two hours of service to them one Saturday morning each month. We accomplish this with a free training site called New Commandment Men’s Ministry Learn how to mobilize your men’s ministry to meet every pressing need in your church at newcommandment.org.
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Learn how to form teams of men for every widow, single mom
and fatherless child in your church at NewCommandment.org.
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